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I want to raise my two boys to be worthy and healthy men. This has prompted me to study social dynamics, exercise, and other components of masculinity appropriate for today's society.
This series of essays begins by describing confidence as it applies to social situations. Then it reveals how most social norms are tests, not rules.
Then I discuss how to connect with people in a fourfold manner, and the six kinds of flirting. Then I use concepts from all four prior essays to discuss romance.
The next topic is maturity. I lament that maturity is so much a masculine trait. To examine why, I discuss frame and the story of the jester, little princess, and king. I conclude by describing how part of maturity is learning to be a chooser even when reactive.
I have written an introduction to muscle awareness, strength training, and stretching entitled meet your muscles.
I have also blogged about body language, motivation types, and the harmful messages boys hear growing up.
My essays focus on healthy masculinity, not how sexual attraction works or how it impacts dating or marriage. Although I do not agree entirely with the content, Ian's presentations The Red Pill Primer for Boys are the best resource I currently know about for teens to read about those topics.
How do I know which stocks or ETFs to buy? You can read my strategy for investment picking.
Once I know which stock or ETF to buy, how do I know when to buy it? You can read my strategy for investment timing.
For most of my family's savings we use dividend investing.
I manage my IRA with a certain style of sector investing.
A slightly advanced topics is using options instead of limit orders to buy and sell stock.
Finally, I describe the charities my family supports. Donating to charity is an important part of money management.
I know many fun math games. Most weeks I volunteer at my son's elementary school to share these games with all three first grade classrooms.
I have also designed an arithmetic worksheet to practice mental math speed. It is much more fun than flash cards.
Recess on a rainy day is more fun with my movement games.
I have also compiled a list of tag variants.
Nine Powers is my diceless, two-person role-playing game.
I used to play the Pathfinder role-playing game quite a bit, and enjoyed in its participating in its forums. My most memorable character was Quarrels, a giant rat who rode a dinosaur. My most recent character was an illusionist named Shayne Anigon for a play-by-post campaign. I once played a Juju Oracle, for whom I made a nice zombie template.
Because some important Pathfinder rules are confusing I wrote and explanation of teamwork feats and pets, and analyzed of the rules about lighting, Stealth, and the Hide in Plain Sight ability.
Pathfinder also has some "weak spots" that I filled with house rules. I used my knowledge of jiu-jitsu to create alternate wrestling rules. I interpolated additional poison rules. Because much of the old-school fun of RPGs is resource allocation, I created blessing cards as one method of making a climactic Pathfinder combat more exciting. Finally, I created a way to move beyond character clases whose foundation is changing class abilities into feats and then giving characters two feats per level.
Pathfinder is currently play-testing an Occult Adventures book. So far it does little to add a truly occult mood to adventures, so I have invented paranormal house rules to fill that gap.
Over the years I have tried many different kinds of martial arts. My favorites are Tai Chi and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
My computer game of choice is Hearthstone. My wife likes it too.
I have written about the game here. Challenge me to a game! My alias is davidvs#1835.
I have invented lots of board games. Here are some of the best ones.
I am not very good at the ancient game Go, but I enjoy it immensely. Here is my collection of internet links related to the game.
I have written house rules for Mansions of Madness that allow all players to play an Investigator, taking turns with the role of Keeper.
I have written house rules for Sherwood Showdown, my favorite kid-friendly card game.
Here is how I learned to play Dominoes, as well as how I make the game's traditional trash talking kid-friendly.
My family drives from Oregon to San Diego at least annually. So I have researched the best way to use Costco gas stations along I-5 to save us time, money, and hassle.
